Electrician by Trade, Investor by Passion: How an Electrician Became Obsessed with Investing

I'm a union electrician with IBEW. If you know anything about the trades, you know the work can be feast or famine. Some years I've been busy non-stop; other years, I've had almost no income at all. That unpredictability taught me a lot about managing money—and those slow periods gave me time to dive deep into hobbies I might never have developed otherwise: investing and programming.

My interest in personal finance started around 2002-2003, back when I was just curious about how money worked. In 2010, when I turned 18, I bought my first stock: Apple. I was hooked.

For years, I invested in individual companies. I loved the process—reading quarterly reports, building a thesis on where a company was headed, then waiting to see if I was right. I still hold a small number of individual stocks for this reason. It's genuinely fun for me.

But over time, I discovered the Canadian Couch Potato approach through Dan Bortolotti's work. It changed everything. I started pairing my individual picks with various Couch Potato portfolios, and eventually, the evidence became too strong to ignore: for most people (including me), a single asset-allocation ETF like XEQT, XBAL, or VGRO is the smarter choice.

These days, I'm slowly moving toward 100% ETFs. I simply don't have the time anymore to read enough annual reports to feel confident picking individual companies. Life got busier—in the best possible way.

I met my wife in 2012. We started dating in December 2013, got married in September 2019, and started trying for a family shortly after.

What followed was the hardest period of our lives. In September 2020, we lost our first child to an ectopic pregnancy. It ruptured, and my wife nearly didn't make it. We decided we were done trying—we'd get another dog and focus on healing.

But eventually, we changed our minds. In January 2022, our daughter was born. She's the reason I don't have time to read company reports anymore. I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Helping people with investing started casually—answering questions on Facebook, Reddit, in person.. wherever I saw Canadians confused about ETFs or overwhelmed by conflicting advice. I genuinely enjoyed it.

In 2023, Sheldon created the ETF Investing for Canadians Facebook group and asked me to help run it as an admin. That group has grown to over 13,000 members, and it's where I'm most active now. Seeing people go from confused and anxious to confident and on-track is incredibly rewarding.

That community inspired this website. I wanted to build tools that would actually help people—the TFSA Contribution Room Calculator, the Mutual Fund to ETF Matcher, the ETF Comparison tools, etc.

Late in 2024, I started the QAFP (Qualified Associate Financial Planner) course to become a licensed financial planner. I finished the first part in mid-2025 and I'm now weighing whether to continue. The time commitment is significant—finishing the course, writing the exam, and getting the required work experience, all while working full-time as an electrician and raising a toddler. I'm leaning towards finishing it, but we will see what the next few months brings in terms of work situation.

I've also built an investing course that takes someone from knowing absolutely nothing about investing to understanding everything they need to know as a Canadian ETF investor. It's comprehensive, practical, and designed for people who want to set up a solid portfolio and then get on with their lives. My goal is to continue to improve this course, and offer one on one advice to anyone who takes it, helping with their individual circumstance.

Looking ahead, I want to continue improving this site. Adding more mutual funds to the matcher. Expanding the ETF database (which is more painful than it sounds—the data providers don't make it easy, and some can't even keep their own formats consistent). I also started a financial planning website for individuals a couple years ago, but ended up shelving it. If time permits, I'd like to get that going as a compliment to InvestingForCanadians.

There's a quote I keep coming back to:

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." — Mahatma Gandhi

I don't have grand ambitions to change the world. But I do believe that helping individual Canadians get their finances in order—one person at a time—makes our country a little bit better. Financial stress affects everything: relationships, health, career decisions, how present you can be with your kids.

If I can help someone stop losing money to unnecessary fees, or give them the confidence to stop checking their portfolio every day, or just help them understand that they don't need to be a stock-picking genius to build wealth—that matters.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you find the tools here helpful. If you’re just getting started, check out the resources page or drop by the Facebook group to say hello!